Search Results for: Ocean

The United Nations General Assembly, meeting in New York, has proclaimed the year 2008 to be the United Nations International Year of Planet Earth (Note 1). The Year’s activities will span the three years 2007-2009.

The Year’s purpose, encapsulated in it strapline “Earth sciences for society”, is to: Reduce risks for society caused by natural and human-induced hazards Reduce health problems by improving understanding of the medical aspects of Earth science Discove

Scientists use deep ocean historical records to find an abrupt ocean circulation reversal caused by greenhouse gas warming

New research produced by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, helps illustrate how global warming caused by greenhouse gases can quickly disrupt ocean processes and lead to drastic climatological, biological and other important changes around the world. Although the events described in the research unfol

Researchers have developed a new tool to help them study endangered whales – autonomous hydrophones that can be deployed in the ocean to record the unique clicks, pulses and calls of different whale species.

Those efforts are leading to some surprising findings, including the discovery by a team of researchers of rare right whales swimming in the Gulf of Alaska.

“There has been only one confirmed sighting of a right whale in the Gulf of Alaska since 1980, so discovering

Autonomous data-recording devices equipped with hydrophones, deployed in remote waters off Alaska, have been used to track seasonal occurrences of blue, fin, humpback, North Pacific right, bowhead, and sperm whales

Why whales emit their characteristic calls remains largely a biological mystery, but listening for the distinctive underwater sounds provides a valuable way to track the movements of endangered large whales. Autonomous data-recording devices equipped with hydrophones

First air-breathing, liquid fuel-powered scramjet takes flight

Before the sun had even risen over Wallops Island, Va., on 10 December 2005, a joint Office of Naval Research/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency vehicle achieved a world first. At an altitude of 63,000 feet, the Freeflight Atmospheric Scramjet Test Technique (FASTT) vehicle became the first air-breathing, liquid hydrocarbon fuel-powered scramjet engine to fly.

After launching from the NASA Wallops Fligh

A single unifying physics theory can essentially describe how animals of every ilk, from flying insects to fish, get around, researchers at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering and Pennsylvania State University have found. The team reports that all animals bear the same stamp of physics in their design.

The researchers show that so-called “constructal theory” can explain basic characteristics of locomotion for every creature — how fast they get from one place to anoth